Whether Approved Or Not, Keystone XL Has Been A Victory For Lobbyists

For the past six years, lobbyists in Washington have made a killing shilling either for or against the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. And with no clear end in sight, the folks on K Street will continue to see a flurry of cash headed in their direction.

During last year’s heated presidential race, groups spent close to $16 million directly related to the Keystone XL pipeline, with most of that money coming from industry and other proponents of the pipeline. While opponents of the pipeline spent a few million last year – with at least one million pledged this year to fight against KXL – the lion’s share of the money spent on lobbying comes from the dirty energy industry.

In all, lobbyists representing more than 50 groups are engaged on the issue and about $1 million has been spent in television ads in 2013 alone, following expenditures of almost $16 million during last year’s election season…

The swarm of lobbyists are targeting a small group of policy makers at the U.S. State Department – and ultimately President Barack Obama, who will make the decision in the coming months…

At the end of June, 54 companies and interest groups reported lobbying on the project, including TransCanada, Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the League of Conservation Voters and Laborers’ International Union of North America, according to disclosure reports filed with the U.S. Senate. That’s up slightly from 50 at the end of March.

Keystone opponents have stuck mostly to online ads and in-person protests and events, but Bloomberg says that the heavy hitters – the American Petroleum Institute and TransCanada – have been able to buy television ads in areas all over the country to tout the many “benefits” of the pipeline.

The lobbying blitz has had a noticeable impact on public opinion, as approval for the project hit as high as 70% earlier this year. But the support can be attributed to the fact that Americans are being inundated with misinformation about the pipeline.

The ugly truth about the pipeline has been buried under millions of dollars worth of industry lobbying and advertising money. And no matter what the final decision is from Washington, there’s no denying that the lobbyists have already won this battle, and they’re laughing all the way to the bank.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE

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Holes too big to fix were poked in TransCanada’s narrative that its Keystone XL tar sands pipeline will be the safest pipeline ever built. And questions were raised about how the pipeline company’s financial dealings are set up during Public Utilities Commission hearings in Pierre, South Dakota this week where state regulators are tasked to decide if the company is capable of following the rules the state set when the original Keystone pipeline permit was granted in 2010.